Monthly Archives: June 2014

Ah, but you don’t have to have a campfire to enjoy Eggy Bread! Oh no, it’s super delicious for breakfast and brunch at home too. And what’s more – it really can be made one-handed. (Assuming you can crack an egg one-handed; if not, do that first!)

This version of Eggy Bread is a great pancake replacement, i.e. you fancy American-style pancakes with maple syrup and so on but you are short on time. It’s dead easy and requires hardly any equipment, which is handy when it comes to washing up too. Phew.

So, apart from enjoying my Cinnamon & Maple Syrup Eggy Bread and the glut of summer berries, we’ve been super-busy of late here at OH HQ. Decorating the sitting room has taken up several weekends, and in anticipation of finally getting our tip of a front garden sorted, I’ve become obsessed with paving… As my Pinterest followers will know!

Anyway, here’s the recipe, so hoist the little one on your hip if needs be, and rest in the knowledge that even if you cannot put baby down, you can all still eat. Which will help.

TOHC x

P.S. Note the mini Duralex glass in the below photo, with maple syrup in. Bought from the new Hema store in London! It’s AMAZING! Like Ikea but better.

Cinnamon & Maple Syrup Eggy Bread

Cinnamon & Maple Syrup Eggy Bread

You will need:

1 free-range organic egg

Milk (a dash; optional)

Ground cinnamon

1 slice stale white bread, cut into 4 strips (use scissors)

Demerara sugar

Maple syrup

Berries to serve

Whisk the egg and milk (if you have it, but it’s not essential) and some ground cinnamon in a mug.

Pour this mixture into a shallow bowl and dip your strips of bread into it – push them in with your finger so the bread absorbs the mixture

Heat the butter in a shallow frying pan (I use a pancake pan) and fry the strips – turn using your fingers or tongs

When nicely golden on both sides, serve your Eggy Bread strips with a sprinkling of Demerara sugar and a drizzle of maple syrup. Berries on the side are nice. As is a strong coffee.

So the sun’s come out! Which is nice. I am actually feeling pretty summery all of a sudden, what with all the seasonal fruit – raspberries, strawberries, peaches – and of course lovely cold ice-cream. In a cone, in a bowl, straight from the tub (I didn’t say that)… it’s the perfect thing on a hot day, and of course the children love the stuff.

I like making sumptuous sauces to drizzle on top of ice-cream, so when Le Creuset asked me if I’d like to try out their new saucepan range, I jumped at the chance. Regular readers will know I am a huge fan of their cast ironware, but I’d never tried their stainless steel pans before. So I used the Le Creuset 3-ply Stainless Steel Sauce Pan to make two ice-cream toppings, which I hope you will like – Butterscotch and Summer Berry. Mmm.

I have to say, the Le Creuset 3-ply Stainless Steel Sauce Pan is brilliant, and has swiftly become my new favourite saucepan – it’s just the right size (not too big, not too small), it conducts heat really well and gives good heat distribution – noticeably better than my standard pans. It’s great for making sauces, making porridge, heating soup etc as you can be sure you won’t get ‘hot spots’ where the middle is hotter than the rest. I really love it as it makes cooking hassle-free! (Big tick.) What’s more – attention, busy mums and dads – you can pour from it one-handed if needs be, as it has an all-round pouring rim. Useful.

I also tested the little Le Creuset sieve, which is just really cute and perfect for the second recipe, below, and the Le Creuset balloon whisk with its smart red handle.

And now for the delicious and oh-so-easy sauces:

Beautiful Butterscotch Sauce

When I made this, my husband said ‘This is completely amazing’ – enough said, really. Admittedly, it’s not the healthiest of things, but a drizzle here and there is such a treat… This is good with vanilla ice-cream (my fave is Yeo Valley) and if you’re organized, with ready weighed-out ingredients, can be made one-handed so you can tend to baby while making a delicious sauce. Oh yes. Just stir and go.

You will need:

25g butter

25g light brown or muscovado sugar

90g golden syrup

1tsp lemon juice

75ml double cream

Put the butter, sugar and syrup into a smallish pan

Heat gently, stirring from time to time, until the butter has melted, and keep stirring until it’s beautifully mixed together

Stir in the lemon juice and the cream and heat gently until simmering

Serve warm over ice-cream, or allow to cool and serve at room temperature.

Summer Berry Sauce

You can use one type or a mixture of berries for this sauce. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries – anything goes. Three ingredients and you’re done. You can also drizzle this sauce on pancakes (crêpes). This sauce smells amazing, and tastes equally delicious – like summer in a bowl.

You will need

250g summer berries

2tsp lemon juice

2-3tbsp icing sugar (or you can use caster if that’s all you have)

Blend the fruit, the lemon juice and the icing sugar in the blender (you may need to add a dash of water to stop it clogging together) until smooth

I just love rhubarb – it’s often forgotten in discussions about great fruit (although strictly speaking, it’s actually a vegetable, but let’s not worry about that), but it’s usually around this time every year, when my mum informs me that her rhubarb patch has gone wild and asks if I’d like some, that I remember just how much I like it. Rhubarb does require quite a lot of sugar to make it palatable, which is a downside, given my efforts to reduce the sugar intake here at OH HQ, but then the tang of rhubarb is an unbeatable flavour, and these muffins offer a delicious and easy way to bake with rhubarb.

This recipe was inspired by a recent visit to new artisan bakeshop Kitchen in Langport in Somerset, on our half-term travels, where we tasted rhubarb & raspberry muffins for the first time and they were declared ‘delicious’.

I hadn’t thought of using rhubarb in muffins before, but it’s great, particularly with raspberries. What’s brilliant is that you don’t need to cook the rhubarb beforehand – you just stir it into your mixture – which means these muffins literally take about 10 minutes to make – perfect for the time-pressed parent.

I am into coconut oil at the moment (I use Lucy Bee coconut oil, which I bought in my local health food shop) so I tried it in this recipe and it worked a treat, although you could also use melted butter.

These were a complete hit here – both children loved them. They are great for a weekend brunch, an afternoon snack or even in lunchboxes or for a picnic, now the weather’s cheered up a bit!

TOHC x

Rhubarb & Raspberry Muffins

Makes approx. 10 muffins

200g self-raising flour

½ tsp cinnamon

90g golden caster sugar

80g melted coconut oil (I used the microwave)

100ml milk

2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 or 3 stalks of rhubarb, sliced into ½ cm pieces

Handful of raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Flaked almonds, for sprinkling

Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350°F, and line your muffin tin with muffin cases.

I'm Kate and Finger, Fork and Knife is where I record the recipes that excite, nourish and inspire me. I focus on wholesome, high-nutrition, home-cooked food - recipes that satisfy and delight. Welcome!